Page:Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads, Kipling, 1899.djvu/230

46 And out of the jungle, with yells and squeals,

Pranced Boh Da Thone, and his gang at his heels!

Then belching blunderbuss answered back

The Snider's snarl and the carbine's crack,

And the blithe revolver began to sing

To the blade that twanged on the locking-ring,

And the brown flesh blued where the bay'net kissed,

As the steel shot back with a wrench and a twist,

And the great white bullocks with onyx eyes

Watched the souls of the dead arise,

And over the smoke of the fusillade

The Peacock Banner staggered and swayed.

Oh, gayest of scrimmages man may see

Is a well-worked rush on the G. B. T.!

The Babu shook at the horrible sight,

And girded his ponderous loins for flight,

But Fate had ordained that the Boh should start

On a lone-hand raid of the rearmost cart,